What is minimalist lifestyle?

Over half of Western Countries citizens say that they dislike the amount of stuff they have in their home and a quarter say it makes them stressed. Most of us have experienced the feeling of lightness and freedom after a proper declutter and cleaning. But we do not do it frequently enough because we fear that one day we may need the items we would otherwise just get rid of.

Switching to minimalist lifestyle may solve many problems. Minimalism in particular is anything that uses the least amount of elements necessary to achieve the results. Therefore, if the purpose of life is to be happy, a minimalist lifestyle is to be happy using the least amount of material possessions and relationships.

Focus on important things

The easiest way to explain minimalist lifestyle is to look at its potential of addition, not the subtraction. It really is less about the things you remove from your life but more about what you can add to it. The potential of minimalism lies in what you can do with your life in place of material possessions.

Minimalism is not something extreme. It is just a way to get rid of the unnecessary things and relationships. To achieve a life filled with happiness and freedom. When you throw away everything that is holding and pulling you down you are able to focus on the important things in life. That is health, passions, purpose, healthy relationships and free will or whatever is the most important to you. Life is far too valuable to waste it in chasing possessions.

Minimalist person has everything it needs

Lots of people think that minimalists have no things and are living in constant lack and need of something. The truth is that even a minimalist may have a hundreds of things. It depends on how deep of a minimalist person you want to be. You can own a house, a car, a laptop, a smartphone, a piano, a washer, furniture, books, kitchen stuff and all other household items and still be a minimalist. It all comes down to having only those things that you need and use frequently.

Minimalist does not own excess stuff. There is no need to waste money and time on just-in-case items. You can always rent or borrow those. The definition of excess may differ of course but that is the beauty of being a minimalist. You can make your own rules on how you want to be a minimalist because things that add value to our life are different by person. Something that has no use to one may be an absolute necessity for someone else in everyday life.

Minimalism will always vary by individuals

The goal of a minimalist is really to own only those things that add value to life. But people have individual goals and expectations on life and live a slightly different life from each other. We have different values, different backgrounds, different traditions, different climate, different education, different passions and different pursuits. As a result, a minimalism is always going to be a little different to everyone.

Minimalism is an individual pursuit of the things and activities that a person values the most. In addition it is the removal of things that distract us from getting our goals achieved. Thus, a minimalism is a very individual thing and needs individual approach. You cannot be a true minimalist without looking deeper into yourself and finding out your true passions and goals.

Quality before quantity

Minimalist does not mean cheap. You can have the most expensive car on the block and you can still be a minimalist. Switching your new iPhone to old Nokia does not make you a minimalist. A person who has one expensive pair of jeans is more minimalist than the one that has ten pair of cheap ones. Minimalism means less, not less expensive. Thus, buying expensive things may make you a minimalist by default because they tend to last longer and are used more frequently. And cheap items happen to break down more which leads to more buying and more unused stuff.

Unused items around the house

According to many studies an average household has up to 50 unused items around the house. In which the most common are: clothing, electronics (old phones, TVs etc), accessories (handbags, watches, hats and sunglasses), computers and hardware, sporting goods, toys, furniture. The biggest space-wasters are old clothing which is never worn. The rest are DVDs and other CDs and videos. These are followed by shoes, kids' toys and computer games.

It is easier to skip shopping than to clean constantly

To be a minimalist is to constantly question about ones possessions. There are many questions to consider: What would happen if you got rid of this? Do you still need this? When was the last time you used this? Could someone use this more than you?

You can avoid those constant questions just by buying less in the first place. Quantity does not replace quality anyway. So next time you buy something, better pick up something good and why not more expensive, because you will be saving money by becoming a minimalist anyway. And less cheap stuff means less cleaning, less stressing, less wondering on how and why you have all this stuff.

Life is easy if you don’t make it too difficult

The purpose of minimalist lifestyle is to make life simple and easy. It does not mean that there should be no big goals or achievements. On the contrary, if you remove everything that is unimportant from your life, then you can focus on greater values and goals.